It's over

Proving once again that CMOs usually zig when they should zag, it seems that real time marketing on Twitter (#rtm) has come to an end.  At least onne digital pro seems to think so (hence the image above).  He found that after the stunning success of Oreo's #blackout tweets during the Superbowl, more marketers piled in to be just as clever, only this time during the Oscars.  hey weren't. Not even close.   In fact, with few exceptions, most were lame, and considering the size of the TV audience, response rates were less than rounding errors.  And, with thousands more marketers wanting to try their thumbs at #rtm,  it's only going to get worse especially that enough time has passed to breed a whole crop of #rtm experts. 

Next!

Ha! Foiled Again, Zombies

If your company or institution's fingerprint scanner security system keeps being broached by zombies or thieves using the amputated digits from dead guys (just like in the movies), you can rest assured that help is on the way.  A small South Dakota university has developed technology that detects a pulse.  "Fingerprint technology isn't new, nor is the general concept of using biometrics as a way to pay for goods. But it's the extra layer of protection — that deeper check to ensure the finger has a pulse — that researchers say sets this technology apart from already-existing digital fingerprint scans, which are used mostly for criminal background checks." 

I had no idea that the walking dead could circumvent retail payment systems.  But then again it never came up before.  Regardless, I figure if you're selling fancy, expensive stuff, you would know ALL your customers especially regular ones who like to pay by fingerprint.  And if you work on really top secret, sensitive projects, don't you think you should have security that's a lot more sophisticated than fingerprint scanners?  Most security systems can be cracked and fingerprint scanners are a step above asking for photo ID... so I've been told. 

Anyway, find the whole, thoroughly researched story here.

Serial Killer Strikes Again.

Brain squirming like toad: Police

 

After taking the lives of television, advertising, marketing, strategy, and the big idea, Technology resumed its murderous spree by snuffing long-time industry mainstay: Creative Brief. 

While there are few who will miss Creative Brief, its sudden passing has left many in the ad industry lost and helpless.  "I think I can speak for most creatives when I say Creative Brief was a real pain in the ass and certainly not popular," says Biff McTrendie, senior Art Director, "but we all took our lead from it.  So now what do we do?"  In response to this latest crime, police have doubled their efforts to track down Technology before it strikes again.  But according to Chief Inspector Kevin “I always wear black™” Roberts "Technology keeps changing so fast it's hard to keep up or know who's next." 

Crowdsourced Flash Mourners gather on Madison Avenue

 

To be sure, Creative Brief was a troubled soul.  Yes, it was inconsistent, often bloated and full of itself, but these traits were not its fault.  And despite these flaws creative teams relied on it for their livelihood for decades. Calvin Ramsbottom III, retired CEO of Ramsbottom, Ramsbottom & Schmidt, the agency that founded the modern creative department methodology, said the loss is tragic but Creative Brief had a lot of enemies and there were a few "newcomers" to the industry who were gunning for it.  "I set Creative Brief straight years ago," said Ramsbottom.  "I kept it humble,  made it to stay to one page and stick to the basics—identify the problem, determine the one thing to say, define the target and describe the deliverables.  And for many years Creative Brief worked with every agency.  But lately it started listening to others.  That's when Creative Brief went from looking lithe and enchanting, like Fred Astaire, into something foreboding and scheming, like Sidney Greenstreet.  Sad really."

One company, however, is trying to make sense of the situation.  Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners of Sausalito CA, has crowdsourced  people from all areas of the advertising industry except creative departments, to help find out why and how this happened and where the industry goes next. According to this group, the reasons behind Creative Brief's demise are: 

1. The world has gotten faster

2. Technology has fundamentally transformed communication

3. Breakthrough matters more than anything

4. Conversations are often a brand goal

5. Powerful insights aren’t always easy to find

6. Creatives often don’t want to have the most pointed and sharpest brief

7. The internet has empowered every creative to challenge the brief and perhaps even come up with a better one on their own

8. Communication has now fragmented to such a point- how can there be one brief for everything?

9. No one reads anything anymore

Fortunately, some actual Creatives crashed the 3-Day Account Plannerapoloza.  They told them in as many words that the Creative Brief is supposed be a fount of so much insight and illumination Moses could have delivered it. And its sole purpose is to SELL because that is the business we are in— not identify which group will be the human champion on social media, or what kind of engagement is needed "to engender within (the digital spaces or out among the people)" as some online pockets of goofiness believe.

 My two cents: If account planners are feeling their creative talents are going unrecognized they are either in the wrong department or in the wrong business. Soccer Trophy generation, may I introduce the real world?

™ George Parker, adscam.typepad.com

SHOCKING NEWS!

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This morning I reeled in horror when I read a press release about how consumers were failing to pay attention to branded content.  I just about dropped my monocle into my breakfast bouillon (luckily it's on a string and only got drenched in bouillon steam).  

Much to my relief, John Webb, a cloud marketing guy in the UK identified the cause of this calamity.  He states that "content marketing was being 'diluted' in quality and warned that marketing as in danger of being taken over by engineers and developers."  The remedy is to hire more "journalists who have been trained to find stories that would resonate with the target audience." 

That geeks have been involved with the creation and look of online efforts is nothing new.  I have been battling the Mr. Potato Head crowd since the late '90s.  The solution, however, isn't to hire more storytellers.  It's more basic than that.  People don't care.  At least the bulk of consumers don't—but more on that at a later time.  First, though, a letter to the Geeks: 

Dear Geeks, 

Please find below an excerpt from a lecture delivered by Robertson Davies at Yale on Feb 21, 1991.  In it, Mr. Davies describes how he found what he could talk about during his segment on writing: 

 

"To return to the aspiring writers of whom I spoke a few minutes ago, and who eagerly seek guidance about how to become writers, where are they to look? Not far, for there are all kinds of books that profess to teach methods of writing, fiction and non- fiction, poetry and the steamiest sort of prose. I bought one such magazine when I was thinking about what I would say to you. From time to time I receive through the mail offers to teach me to write, by some infallible method, but I have never had time to accept them. But in preparation for today I thought I had better find out what these helpful people were offering. The cover of my magazine proclaimed “How to Write Passionate Love Scenes . . . and Still Respect Your Typewriter in the Morning.” Much is suggested in that title. Is the reader to expect that he will not only learn to write passionate love scenes, but that he will himself experience them vicariously? To a certain sort of mind, the prospect is alluring. The imaginative preparation, or foreplay; the turning down of the sheets, so to speak; the actual writing, or deliciously prolonged orgasm; the sense of achievement, of having transformed erotic fantasy into art. And you can do it over and over again, without fatigue or disgust

"I was astonished when I read the article to find it quite sensible; its counsel was, “Don’t overdo things.” But the title, as it appeared on the cover — that was aimed straight at the eager, desirous heart.

"The magazine was full of advice, which may be good. I don’t know because little of it concerned me. I don’t particularly want to know “how to write irresistible nonfiction” nor do I want advice about computers because I do not own one and could not manage it if I did. I don’t worry about collecting from slow-paying magazines. I don’t want to know how to improve my writers’ group, because I shrink from the notion of writers’ groups; I don’t want to master the building block of poetry and don’t believe such a thing exists; nor do I seek “a playful guide to being a Southern writer.” I was grateful that at Christmas nobody gave me the foolishly suggestive “Take an Author to Bed” poster. I am interested that the magazine calls loudly for novels in which “safe sex is eroticised and characters are sensuously — and routinely — conscious of their own and their partners’ health” because this shows that the magazine really has its heart in the right place and wishes to be associated with a “caring community.” Literary aid against AIDS, in fact.

"As a writer, I have my share of intuition, and as I looked through that magazine I had a strong sense of the sort of reader at whom it was aimed: a lonely person, whose youth was slipping away; a reader who will hopefully cut out the coupon that is appended to an advertisement that begins, “You Can Make Up to $9,800 in 24 Hours!” and which describes the literary life as “The Royal Road to Riches”; a reader unsophisticated enough to believe that writers live marvelous social lives, eat and drink very high on the hog, and have access to unlimited, apocalyptic sex. A wistful reader and, I fear, an untalented one.

"It is very sad. People of that sort do not, so far as I know, imagine that they could learn to write music by mastering a few easy tips, or that they could paint pictures that anybody would want. What on earth makes them think that they can be writers? It would be interesting to talk about that."

So,here's the deal: I won't write code and you won't write copy.  Cool with that? 

Help Wanted

© http://fredschiller.blogspot.ca

I've seen ads looking for Digital Copywriters and I'm trying to figure out just what a Digital Copywriter is and how is he different from a regular copywriter? Do they possess specialized skills that a regular Copywriter do not?  When did this distinction arise and why it was necessary?  There must be an important reason why we need Digital Copywriters and not just regular copywriters, just like there would be a need for actors who specialize in walking with a bum left leg.

Reading these ads further, I discovered why.  It seems that Digital Copywriters are experts at generating Content.  Their words engage, increase awareness and open a dialogue between a brand and its customers—concepts that regular copywriters can never understand (or actually believe).  So powerful is the Digital Copywriter's Content it turns regular people into rabid brand ambassadors for life.   

I guess this makes them much different than regular copywriters because the only thing regular Copywriters know what to do is sell stuff.  You know, make money for the client.  Because they only know how to write for old media, being able to create pixelated copy that produces no measureable benefit to the client is more important than actually moving product or re-enforcing a brand distinctiveness.  Guess I should get some help figuring out how to be a Digital Copywriter.

Civility in the Age of Freelance

To expand my list of contracts, I've gone through the standard steps of registering with the creative recruiters, meeting with them and getting an idea of the things they look for.  I am at the point, however, where these companies are a liability.  I've never really had anything worthwhile from these shops; a few have done nothing. Nothing, that is, except to have me come in and meet my old contact's replacement and fill out the same old forms again (this will happen at least twice a year as these companies have a staff turnover rate higher a Denny's restaurant.)  But their negligence is starting to cost me.  Two incidents in two weeks has forced me to swear off associating with these companies. 

First, I got an email from one asking if I was interested in a short-term contract (3-6 months).  It was to start mid-Feb and she would put my name to the client.  That was the last I heard, until I emailed last week wondering about the status.  "Oh, I forgot to tell you," she said, "the client went with another candidate :("  I guess if I hadn't contacted her I still wouldn't know the status. 

My favourite example of hackitude happened last Tuesday. I got a call from a creative recruiter and she said that there was a short notice gig for a DM writer on Thursday and Friday writing automotive copy and would I be interested.  I said yes and she told me that I would be briefed over the phone by the agency—I didn't need to go in—and I was given sixteen hours to do the job.  

That was the last time I heard from her and I never heard from the agency.  

I booked the time and cleared the deck for a rush job that never came.  But I guess in this time when a barely noticeable head nod counts as an acknowledgement, I shouldn't expect more than an emoticon.